


Pretending

by Forbiddenmichael



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Ashton Irwin - Freeform, Calum Hood - Freeform, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hella fluffy, In Bed, Kissing, Michael Clifford - Freeform, Mutual Pinning, Pretending, cal is drunk, cal is in the ban tho, fluff again omg, its kinda from your pov, loads of descriptions omg, luke hemmigs, not like that tho, not really any background info but oh well, omg, sleeping, that it okay, the other boys arnt in this, they are only mentioned, this is so fluffy, uhh, very cute, you are the girl, youre in a hotel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbiddenmichael/pseuds/Forbiddenmichael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was still what felt like a cavern of space between you, the white bed sheet representing some sort of glacial divide between you and the boy. It wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before; you always cuddled with him and the rest of the band. It was just that they weren’t (normally) half naked, or in your bed, or drunk, or Calum, or all of the above. Mostly what had your heart rate raising was just the fact it was Calum. But before erratic thoughts a sweet goodnight kisses or days of stolen ‘I love you’s’ with the boy next to you could enter your head like they normally do before the snatches of sleep catch you, Calum was shuffling back into you.</p><p>or when calum is drunk and you have to test how good you are at 'pretending' to be in love with him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretending

**Author's Note:**

> vvvv. proud of this one. hope you like itt

When you woke up, the first thing you noticed was how you couldn’t feel anything. The warm fuzziness of the slightly deflated cushion, the chill of one leg over the poufy duvet and the other warm underneath it- one leg in and one leg out keeping you just warm enough- and the fact your hair was pulled all over your face, making a sort of curtain which, if you had opened your eyes, your eyelashes would have dragged across. But all these sensations and indicators of heat were lost with the deliriousness of a recently risen mind. A fog, thick and dense and one that tugged at your consciousness to just rest and close your eyes for ‘just five more minutes’, was still lurking at the back of your mind. Letting lose tendrils of itself stroke across your mind in temptation before a vacuum sucked it away. The edges of your mind didn’t yet fully awaken and the bed was so warm and welcoming and you were so tired. Five more minutes, you thought, succumbing to the promise of a few more minutes of the unconscious state of not feeling anything at all. It descended, enveloping you into itself and your eyelashes fluttered across your cheeks as your eyes closed fully.  
The fog was sucked away from your head. Ripped away from you, leaving you cold and alone and feeling everything, the creek of your muscles and the emptiness that came for twenty seconds before anyone cared to ask why they had woken. The last glimpses of sleep slipped away from you as fast as water down a drain and retreated till the mere thoughts of it were unimaginable. So suddenly it had been taken from tightly clasped hands that you didn’t care to search out the equally abrupt noise that brought about the loss of serenity.

You all but grumbled, feeling hair falling into your mouth, which you spat out without much thought as to the sounds that sounded rather like choking. The sound reverberated out of your throat, up from the pit of your stomach and out of your mouth. It was as good indication as any to whoever had just made such and absurd sound, at such an absurd time, that they had just woken someone who had no thoughts of being gentle. Incoherent grumbling turned to mildly questioning sounds at the crashing around in your room. Loud, throaty grunts that rose up higher at the end in an attempt to ask what the hell someone was doing in your room and this time of night. The grunts were not answered, or even acknowledge so you reluctantly twisted till you were facing upwards on your bed. Ignoring the slight tug of the duvet where you had clasped it between your legs, as it dug into your thigh.

“What?” you practically groaned. Your tongue felt tacky and heavy in your mouth and it slide along the roof of it like sandpaper. No matter if your mouth was able to respond to the bleary action from your mind, your eyes weren’t. Refusing to open until there was a high giggle from the side of your room responsible for the crashes. Now, whilst ignoring how when your eyes opened even the small glow of red light from your bedside alarm clock caused you to squint at its brightness, you stared down edge of your nose to the area. Even in the half-light you could make out the whites of normally chocolaty brown eyes, and the flash of a perfect set of teeth.

A delirious and intoxicated Calum was fumbling around the room removing each item of clothing with what was seem to just be drunken excitement. Why he was drunk was a question not worth asking, because frankly, why did Calum ever get drunk when it wasn’t, like he said every time you asked, ‘to just have fun’. The real question was why he had made his way to your hotel room when his and the rest of his band mates had their own rooms across the hall. Or it could have been how he managed to get in your room without a key card. Or the one that was staring you straight in the face, about why on earth he was now standing in just a plain black pair of boxers with a huge grin on his face and slightly blown out eyes. But it was mainly, what the hell he was doing here in the first place.

“Hi, Y/N” he giggled, his voice high and erratic and slurring at the end. Standing just at the end of the bed, the slight moisture of sweat on his body, from god knows what, caught the glare of the bedside clock. “Calum, what the f-“you began, yourself sounding less groggy as your woke up even more. “Shush” he cried out, throwing his arms in the air at you before you could speak, “No swearing! Ash might hear you!” with the last sentence he looked around, almost as if he was waiting for the long hair boy to appear from thin air and curse him out for even thinking of swearing. “Cal, seriously what do you want?” you asked him, still your words came out in a slightly lower tone than normal. He stretched, lifting his arms above his head and facing his palms to the ceiling. The skin across his whole torso and stomach pulled taught and he exhaled drastically before slouching again. “’m tired” he whined, like some sort of stroppy pre-teen. “Okay?” he was really starting to get on your nerves now. He couldn’t just stroll into your room in the middle of the night, strip to just his underwear and then moan about how tired he was, when he was never even going to remember the conversation in the morning. He was far too drunk to even be responsible for his actions right now, let alone remember any of what he was doing. This did give you a slight vote of confidence with the fact if he was in your room, pestering you, he wasn’t with another girl. Something that would bring you happiness later on, but not right now when your eyes were threatening to close the longer Calum just looked at you, so you couldn’t care less.

His eyes flicked from your frowning face to the edge of the mattress. He stared at the corner of the duvet since it was curled tight in your fist from when you curled over onto your side. Clenched up into yourself, like a C or a comma, there was a space just big enough for another body. If that body was mirroring your position and belonged to a certain boy with specifically black inked arms and brown tousled hair. Calum looked to his feet, shuffling his foot against some sock or item of clothing that littered your hotel room floor. Twiddling his hands behind his back he didn’t say anything. Just gnawed slightly on his lip, a habit you were sure he had picked up from Luke, and then looked up at you again. His hands twisted awkwardly behind him, and it would have been cute and endearing if it was the always over confident Calum, or if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing to you. Ignoring the way his lips were turning pinker and plumper the longer he sucked at it, and the way his hair flopped slightly into his face as he looked at the floor. And also you just ignored the fact he was drunk and didn’t actually want to cuddle you in particular, he was just annoyed he didn’t pick anyone up and probably the rest of the boys did. Huffing, you threw the cover off yourself, ignoring the goose bumps that formed when your warm skin came into contact with the cold air, and Calum took that as the only confirmation he needed.

Practically hopping over to the bed, he didn’t have far to come. Four large bounces and he was by the side of your bed. He looked down at you, fondness creeping into the small curve of a smile. And then he slipped his feet under the covers and pulled it back over the two of you. It wasn’t a small bed. Just big enough for two people, but with Calum lying so warm and soft and sleepy next to you the bed couldn’t have been big enough to put what felt like a ‘safe’ distance between the two of you. With whatever space was left in the bed when your two bodies were in it, you distanced yourself. Stopping yourself from coming into contact from his hot-to-touch body, something that would make your mind go fuzzy with a fog that was not like the mist of sleep. His brown hair curled around his head and around the mass of the pillow, a pillow that would no doubly smell of him in the morning, it wasn’t like you would be using that pillow for the rest of your stay here to soak up the smell of him lingering on it. He mumbled something that resembled a ‘thank you’ when he first laid down, and you just thought about the fact he only had to ask. There was still what felt like a cavern of space between you, the white bed sheet representing some sort of glacial divide between you and the boy. It wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before; you always cuddled with him and the rest of the band. It was just that they weren’t (normally) half naked, or in your bed, or drunk, or Calum, or all of the above. Mostly what had your heart rate raising was just the fact it was Calum. 

But before erratic thoughts a sweet goodnight kisses or days of stolen ‘I love you’s’ with the boy next to you could enter your head like they normally do before the snatches of sleep catch you, Calum was shuffling back into you. From when you had been curled up he had done the same with space between. Now, without so much of a word he moved back until the two curls of your bodies were together. His back against your front and even the curve of your thigh pressed against the back of his legs. Air felt thick and heavy when you breathed it is, and when you breathed it out it fluttered across Calum’s neck and jaw line. If you had been watching him, you would have seen the goose bumps form there, but you were to engrossed in the way Calum’s skin burned hot and cold against yours and how contentedly both of you sighed. Subconsciously one of your arms had snaked around his side and was pressed with a tight fist to his chest, whilst the other remained curled up against his back. Even with a hand pressed up against his back, you couldn’t bring yourself to open up your palm when the temptation to rub not so soothing circles on his back would be too much. So he remained curled into the alcove of your body, his own hand clutching yours to his chest. He was the little spoon, and you the big spoon. “Y/N?” he whispered, still drunk as his whisper came out as more of a stage whisper, meaning he was basically talking normally. “Hmm?” you asked, telling him you were still awake, if only just. The hum echoed down Calum’s ear, and your lips nearly caught on his ear. He tried not to shiver and succeeded, and you were none the wiser. Sleep started to consume you both as the pause was long and dragging. And just as you thought he had succumbed to the call of unconsciousness he whispered, properly this time, “Can you pretend you already know I’m in love with you?” there was no quiver at the end of his voice like you knew there would have been if he had asked when he wasn’t intoxicated. Just as quickly as he had asked, you were wide awake. Wait, did he just say he was in love with you, or was he just saying he wanted someone to be in love with him?

Then he spoke again, before you even had chance to process, let alone react to what he had earlier said. “Can you pretend you’re in love with me?” there was no sarcasm or any signs of teasing in his voice. Only what you could identify as hope. “Okay” you whispered, this time it was really a whisper. More to yourself than anyone as a way of reminding yourself, that yes this was okay and you weren’t going to ruin everything. The small okay barley reached Calum, but he smiled anyway. A small turn up of the corners of his mouth, no teeth or dimples but a small secretive smile just for himself. You pushed away the feeling of butterflies in your stomach and said louder, “Okay”. Calum smiled again, feeling elated but void of the growing sense of something foreboding in the pit of your stomach. He may be drunk, and his judgement impaired completely, but he still knew that he was in love with you, and it just didn’t occur to him that maybe this wasn’t the best way of telling you. You pressed a chaste kiss to where his shoulder joined the muscle leading to his neck. Leaving your lips there for longer, lingering and savouring the way his skin gave under your touch. You placed another kiss to the shell of his ear and tried to ignore the voice in your head that was telling you that you were taking advantage of him just because he was drunk. He had asked you himself, you reasoned. You were only pretending. Pretending. Yes that was it. Calum’s body was warm in your arms and he was so soft and everything you had thought, his height enabled your chin to rest in the curvature of his neck instead of on his crown of messy hair. This was better you thought, you could see the edge of his lips from here, and when he eyes were open and closed. Angling your head slightly forward you kissed his check, letting the warmth of his skin send flutters across your lips. Three stole kisses was all you allowed yourself before settling back down onto the pillow. He hummed in approval and muttered. “You’re good at pretending, Y/N”. Then sleep claimed him for itself. Lying wide awake, you thought about how pliant Calum was in your arms, how he kind of said he was in love with you, and how all of this was pretending. Only pretending. That’s all he wanted, you told yourself, for you to pretend. The room was still dark, and the sun was still to raise, so, whilst still pretending, you sucked in a breath and whispered, “I love you” right down Calum’s ear. It was okay, you were only pretending. 

*** 

When Calum woke the next morning he remembered everything. He always prided himself with his ability to hold his drink and most often he did. Sure the alcohol would cause him to splutter out useless rubbish and do some things he wasn’t proud of, but it was almost as if he was watching through a screen. He knew he was doing them, and that he was only doing it because he was drunk but he couldn’t stop himself. He always remembered. That was just it, it was like his normal self was trapped in his delirious body, screaming and telling him to stop. But for just once it was like his normal state was teaming up with the drunken one. When he told you that he loved you last night, sure he was horrified at his drunken mind, but in some ways he was ecstatic. He hid behind the façade of being drunk. Letting you believe his entire drunken slur was exactly that, just a drunken drabble of consciousness. And when you kissed him, his impaired body relaxed into it, into the nest of your arms and maybe he let himself pretended that you weren’t pretending. He pretended that you did in fact love him. So when the shiver and chill of three words, uttered as softly as the sound of sand falling in on itself, entered his mind, he imploded. His drunken and delirious mind crashing and stirring in him until he really did feel drunk on something other than alcohol. He smiled to himself then, forgetting that you were just pretending.

*** 

When you woke the next morning, the heat radiating off the body next to you was scolding. His tanned skin gave of a certain essence of serenity and calm that you didn’t believe was possible so you just gave into it. The scolding heat of his body was just Calum. The way it had always been, and no matter how it was annoying to grow uncomfortable when you cuddled in hot countries, you were just glad you left the air conditioning on in your hotel room last night. Calum was still asleep; the little puffs of air coming from his noise blew away a piece of hair hanging in front of his face. You were still in the same positions as last night, so you could only partially see half of his face. The jawline, cheek bone, squint of the side of his eye and curve of the corner of his smile, were all that was visible to you. His eyes were still closed and his lips set into a relaxed line. You allowed yourself the luxury of speaking three words to him. You’d always wanted to wake up and those words to be the first you said, so you said them into his sleep-warmed skin. ‘I love you’ you’d muttered, and it filled you with as many butterflies that would lead someone to think that someone had said them to you. The thrill of saying them out loud was hammering away at your floundering heart. This was the effect skin on skin contact with Calum drove you too.

Calum’s eyes fluttered open. Finally opening them after savouring the feeling of being awake in your arms. You didn’t know this of course, and you were still asleep when he had snuggled his back further into you and entangled his legs with yours. When you had woken, Calum felt the shift of your breathing on the back of his neck and how you stirred around him until your realised you weren’t alone. He felt your lean forwards as almost to kiss him, but stopped. You had sighed, the new found air across his face making it difficult for Calum not to open his eyes as it itched his nose, and then nestled into his neck. A small smile creeped across his face and he tried with all his might to bite it back. You didn’t see, and he was glad you could both pretend that this domesticated life was real. ‘I love you’ you had muttered into his ear and Calum almost cried out. A mixture of fear at the fact that you may still be pretending, and anticipation at you not pretending. His heart pounded and his head swam and it had nothing to do with an acute hangover. You had said you loved him and his whole existence was being soaked up like small bowl of water and a large sponge. Waves of elation crashed down on him like the crest of a wave and left him washed up like a piece of drift wood. He wasn’t sure whether the hammering feeling was his own heart beating a hundred times faster in his chest or if it was the manic beating of your own heart against his back.

So whilst all of these thoughts were going through Calum’s head, you savoured what little time you had left with him swaddled in your arms. But unannounced he turned in your arms. Twisted in the bed, facing you with inches between you. His legs still twined with yours and your hands now clasped together by his larger ones. The glacial space between your faces was filled with your erratic breathing and flittering, scared eyes. He had heard you, you thought. His eyes were far too open and awake to be because he had just woken up. For how long he had been awake you didn’t know, but for not long you hoped. The warmth of his skin tried to warm the trembling of your hands, which were similar to the effects of shivering. But still your hands shook. “Are we still pretending?” he whispered, nose bumping yours for a fraction of a second. You couldn’t speak, words were caught in your throat and you felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. What if he only was pretending? What if he was laughing at you and that was why that small smile was spreading across his face? What if this is all some sort of joke? And how did he even remember last night? Thoughts and images raced across your mind, too fast and jolty for you to process half of them. A running storyboard of everything you had with Calum and how it was all about to go up in smoke. You had no intention of opening your mouth through fear of you spewing out something like ‘I’m in love with you’ coming out. He inched closer, and if he spoke his lips would have caught on yours. “Because I’m not” he breathed onto your lips, before they were on yours. Soft lips fell on your own and moved in sync. To say that you needed time to react would be cliché, but accurate as out of all of the things your thought Calum would do, pressing repeated kisses to your lips whilst you fought to remain in control of your erratic thoughts, was not one of them.

So with that first kiss, Calum stopped pretending. He stopped pretending that he wasn’t in love with you. He dropped the façade that he wasn’t in love with one of his best friends and he just let his mind run free. He let his mind take over and give into every thought that had been kept under lock and key at the back of his mind. He pretended that his heart wasn’t soaring when you finally kissed him back. And he pretended that this wasn’t what he had been craving for longer than he cared to admit. But really he just stopped pretending that this wasn’t what he had been dreaming about for years as your hand slipped into his hair and your upper lip fell between his.


End file.
